Henry Judd

Behind the Hindu-Moslem Strife

National or Religious Question?

(December 1946)

From New International, Vol.12 No.10, December 1946, pp.296-301.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

Within the colonial world, the problem of the
relations between Hindu and Moslem in India has become of outstanding
importance. A problem that, several years ago, might have been disposed
of in the normal course of historic and nationalist development has
more than redoubled in intensity and has become crucial for the cause
of India’s revolutionary struggle for freedom. The 6,000 corpses in
Calcutta’s streets, a result of a savage and tragic episode of communal
rioting, testify to the Intensity of the feelings involved, along with
the fact that, despite the entry of the Moslem League into Nehru’s
Provisional India Government, the murder of Hindu by Moslem and Moslem
by Hindu continues. In this issue of The New International,
Henry Judd, author of India in Revolt, analyzes the
content of this problem. We also reprint a resolution
suggesting the revolutionary solution proposed by the Indian section of
the Fourth International. — Editor.

These special features of the geography of India are
reflected in her civilisation. To the variations in topography,
climate, flora and fauna, and natural resources correspond wide
differences in cultural patterns and social institutions, as evidenced
by the richness and variety of art, literature, philosophy and religion
in India. Nevertheless, the existence of facilities for communication
within the greater part of the country has led to the growth of social
relationships among different racial groups and created a profound
cultural unity in the midst of diversity; and the comparative isolation
of this great country from the rest of the world has preserved the
conditions for the evolution of a civilisation that is unique and
specifically Indian. — (Industrial Labour in India,
published by the International Labour Office, Geneva, 1938.)

What are the basic facts of the Hindu-Moslem problem?

India is a country with 6,000 known years of history, during the
course of which countless migrations, conquests, assimilations,
divisions, unifications, etc., have occurred. The Ethnic-racial
mixture of today is the consequence of these 6,000 years of
inter-marriage and social relations.

The first Moslem (Mohammedan, Mussulman) invasion took place in
the year 664, into North India, but large-scale migrations did not
begin until the year 1200, approximately 700 years ago, after which
they took place regularly, leading to the foundation of the Mogul
dynasties.

The Moslems mixed freely with the Aryan peoples, assimilating
their culture and proselytizing for the Islamic religious system among
these people. To escape the rigid, predetermining grip of the Hindu
caste system, many of these Aryans became converts to Islam — that is, became
Moslems. This, of course, also elevated them to the ranks of the
ruling class officialdom.

“Probably as many as 90 per cent of India’s 90 million [1] Moslems are descended from Hindu converts
to Islam.” (Sir Frederick Puckle, The Pakistan Doctrine, Foreign
Affairs Quarterly, pg. 528.) Of the 12 million Moslems in the
Punjab province, 10 million are of Hindu descent, having embraced the
new religion to escape caste and Hindu laws.

According to the latest census figures (1940), India is divided,
along religious-communal lines, as follows:

Hindu

255 million

Moslem

92 million

Sikh

6 million

Christian

6 million

Tribal

26 million

TOTAL

385 million

Approximately two-thirds of the Moslem population of 92
million (59 million, to be exact) live in six of India’s northern
provinces. The remaining 33 million Moslems live scattered far and wide
in India’s five other provinces, native states, etc., constituting
enclaves within the broad Hindu population. In the six northern
provinces of Moslem concentration (reading from left to right on the
map: Baluchistan, Sind, Northwest Frontier, Punjab, Bengal and Assam
Provinces), the 59 million Moslems constitute 56 per cent of
the total six province population strength of 108 million. The other 49
million people are, of course, almost entirely Hindus, except for the
six million Sikhs who live in the Punjab.

Not Traditional National Question

Such are the basic facts. Now, what are the essential
differences between Hindu and Moslem, from a social standpoint? These
differences fall under the general heading of religious-communal
differences. That is, we are dealing with two communities,
BUT communities that overlap in many fundamental respects: language,
culture and tradition, racial and ethnic mixture, common conditions of
life (particularly in the village-peasant areas), etc. In a word, the
Hindu-Moslem problem is not a national problem in the
traditional sense of the word. That is, the Moslems do not form a
distinct national minority grouping, with a distinct culture, language,
etc. We are dealing with a special form or expression of the national
question — a problem in which the specific features of
difference between the two vast communities are determined more by
psychology, feelings and sentiment than by easily observable facts. The
Moslem people are not a viable nation; they are an organic part of the
Indian nation, but a part with viable differences and problems that
cannot be dismissed.

As the resolution on “Pakistan” (the demand of the Moslem
League for recognition of the Moslems as a separate nation) adopted by
the Indian Bolshevik-Leninists asserts, the real national
differences within India consist of differences between peoples
residing in regions, or separate provinces, of the country. That is,
regional peoples such as the Punjabis, the Bengalis, the Pathans of the
Northwest Frontier, the Madrasis and Tamils of South India, etc., have
far greater differences and points of division, with respect to
language, race, history and customs, than do the Hindus and Moslems
considered as abstract categories of people! For example, a Moslem and
a Hindu living in the Punjab region of India (that is, Punjabis) have
far more in common with one another culturally, linguistically, etc.,
than they do with a Moslem and a Hindu living in, let us say, Bengal or
Madras provinces. To express it differently, their common
characteristics as Punjabis are more apparent and significant than
their characteristics in common with, respectively, a Bengal or Madras
province Hindu; or a Bengal or Madras province Moslem. But this is not
to deny a common religious-communal bond between the Punjab
Moslem and the Bengal or Madras Moslem; or such a bond between the
Punjab Hindu and the Bengal or Madras Hindu. Such a denial would, of
course, imply that the Hindu-Moslem antagonism has no reality and as
such would be nonsense. At the same time, we must again call attention
to the general, all-pervading Indian-ness that reaches into
every region and province of India and covers each religion, sect,
community, caste and class with its all-embracing national
qualities. This quality of Indian-ness is revealed in common
origins of language and their deep inter-connection (not to mention the
fact that Hindustani, the plurality language, is spoken by one-third of
the entire population); common social and economic life; common
traditions and historic experiences; elaborate communications, etc.

What is the specific nature of the Moslem community of 92 millions?
The vast bulk of this community (over 80 per cent) are poor, illiterate
peasants — either tenant farmers or small landholders. They live within
the lower scales of the socially depressed Indian population. It is
wrong to think that the Moslem community is not internally divided
along economic and class lines. On the contrary, its top sector is an
extremely reactionary and oppressive clique. In Bengal province, with
which the author is most familiar, the Moslem castes are
indistinguishable from the Hindu castes who occupy the other half of
the province. The Moslem landlords, princes (Nizams) and feudal
aristocrats are precisely symmetrical to their class brothers in the
Hindu community. In Hyderabad, the largest and one of the most
oppressive of the so-called native states, a Moslem ruling class of
landlords and feudalists tyrannizes over a Hindu peasant population in
exactly the same manner as do the princes in Hindu native states.

William Phillips, Roosevelt’s personal envoy in India and the
gentleman who was declared persona non grata by the British,
declared in a report,

“... the Moslem community as a political party has
only an artificial unity. Like other religious groups it comprises
various classes which have been more or less welded together
politically by the device of separate electorate. There is already
evidence to indicate that Moslem workers and peasants are becoming
increasingly aware of their unity with Hindus of the same class.” (The
Voice of India, February, 1946, p.248.)

The Moslem community then consists of:

A small handful of landlords, princes and feudal rulers.

A small strata of petty bourgeois intellectuals, government
officials, students, priests and religious teachers, unemployed college
graduates.

A small strata of industrial workers.

A small strata of skilled handicraft workers.

An overwhelming strata of peasants and small landowning farmers.

Unfortunately, we do not possess exact figures on the
actual numbers of the above groups. It is important to note there are
hardly any Moslem industrial bourgeois and comparatively few Moslem
proletarians. In addition, since the Islamic religion frowns upon the
garnering of “interest” and money-lending, the Moslems rarely are found
among the commercial groups of the Indian population. The Hindu bania,
the village money-lender and storekeeper, has a free field, thus
providing a constant source of irritation in Moslem village communities
and farming areas.

Sources of Moslem Communalism

The sources of Moslem communalism are not hard to
uncover, once we grasp the basic facts outlined above. In general, the
Moslem people occupy a lower place in the all-India community than
other groups. They do not share proportionally in the general
production or distribution of social wealth; nor do they occupy social
positions commensurate with their numbers and significance. They
therefore feel discriminated against. The ruling ranks of the Moslemic
community likewise strive to share places with the corresponding ruling
ranks of the Hindus. Moslem landlords and princes wish to retain their
class privileges and powers; Moslems wish to become capitalists and
share the profits of the Hindu textile, steel, iron and coal industrial
magnates; Moslem intellectuals are in violent competition with the
Hindu intellectuals and college graduates over jobs in the British
civil service and administration, etc.

Resolution Evades Issue

And here, in conclusion, we come to the program and
resolution on Pakistan offered by the Indian Bolshevik-Leninists, the
Indian section of the Fourth International. Insofar as it goes, this
resolution — which we are publishing — proceeds along the correct line
but, in our opinion, does not go far enough and, in a sense, evades the
Moslem issue.

The resolution correctly describes the character of the Moslem
League and its separatism, as well as the hopelessly retrogressive
nature of Pakistan. It places India’s national problem on a realistic
level by pointing to the fact that regional divisions, according to
nationalities (Punjabis, Bengalis, etc.), constitute the real problem.
A united, socialist, federal India is the solution proposed,
similar to the Leninist plan for the solution of Russia’s national
question. To quote from the original constitution of Soviet Russia,

“The workers and peasants of each nation are free to
decide independently at their own plenipotentiary Soviet congresses
whether they desire, and if so, on what conditions, to take part in the
federal government and other federal Soviet institutions.” (Part II,
Chapter 5)

The principle of socialist federalism assumes, of
course, the right of secession from any Federated Indian state. As the
program of the Indian Trotskyism states, only a democratically-elected
Constituent Assembly can decide these questions of Indian independence,
and create the broad outlines of the future nation. But the proposal of
socialist federations is undoubtedly the correct answer to the basic
aspects of the national problem.

But the Moslem problem and relations between the two major
communities overlaps the national, or regional problem! In the present
tense situation, it even tends to dominate the former and replace it.
Moslems live everywhere in India, regardless of nationality, and form
enclaves within the body of India itself, including the predominantly
Hindu sections. And, since it evades this question, the resolution we
publish can be considered satisfactory only insofar as it goes. It does
not go far enough. It is not sufficient to characterize the reactionary
Moslem League, nor lay bare its class motives, since behind
the League stands the dispossessed and degraded Moslem mass, with its
deep and justified suspicions against the Congress party and its
leadership. This cannot be ignored without the charge of “pro-Hinduism”
being leveled against the resolution and its authors.

It Lenin could consider that the Russian anarchists had the right to found a state, or community, of their own; if Lenin could believe that, in general, any group of people with a common set of beliefs and ideas, had separatist rights-then we cannot deny this same right to a group of people such as the Moslems. Not, indeed, merely because Lenin said so, but because we revolutionary socialists stand for the utmost of democracy, above all at a time when the entire bourgeois, Stalinist and reactionary world has discredited itself. The very tenacity with which the Congress bourgeois leadership opposes Pakistan and demands that the Moslem people subject itself to its tender graces, this alone would almost suffice to make us hold an opposite opinion, lest we be identified with Gandhi, Nehru, et al. Thus, we must clearly state that the Moslem people shall have the right to form independent states, including enclaves within Hindu territory, if they so wish and so decide for themselves. We will point out the general economic disadvantages of such separation and the greater advantages that lie in regional affiliation to a Federated India, but we cannot deny the right of the Moslem masses to attempt such a separatist experience, if they so wish. Above all, the Indian Trotskyists must openly proclaim the right of the Moslem people to vote on such a proposal. Everybody, the British government, the Moslem League, the Congress party — literally everybody denies the Moslem people the right to vote, to express their sentiments. Shall we be among these opponents of elementary democracy? No, in a free India the Moslem masses must have the right to vote, after democratic consideration and discussion, on the issue of separatism. In our opinion, the program of the Indian Fourth Internationalists will not be correct or complete until this is added, in unambiguous form, to the resolution.

Footnote

1. The 1940 India
census records 93 million Moslems, rather than Buckle’s figure.